If I Could Stop Procrastinating, I May Rule The World.

[ladymirth]

I really, really want to write.

 
I have so many plot bunnies inside of me, I might just spontaneously combust. Anyway, I am sick of reading stuff. I’m sick of fanfiction, and I can’t seem to read anything else properly anymore either. I keep bringing books from the library and then putting off reading them until they’re two weeks overdue and I have to return them back the library, untouched and unknown along with a fine. This is all the more depressing when I remember a time when I would have read all eight of the books my sister and I borrowed between us within the week, and then spent the rest of the month memorizing every single delicious quote and texture of the pages till we were forced to return them. When I would have a near-orgasmic reaction to the smell of fresh, musty paper in a bookstore. When I felt like I held the threads of the universe in my hand when I looked at a blank sheet of note paper with my pen poised above it. When I could read print instead of HTML, glory in the crackle of pages instead of reaching for the mouse to scroll down the screen. When I loved the pen strokes of my beloved Atlas Synergy pen in neat lines against the lines of the note book in favour of the clickety-clack of my fingers skittering blurrily over the key board at ten times the speed of my pen.  

 

Honestly, where has that girl gone?

 

Well, tough luck about the writing bug. Sweet September is upon us, and the tendrils of real life is creeping up on my heretofore placid existence, like so many adders in the grass. I need at least four hours out of each day for my job, for one. I had the amazing lack of foresight to get myself a job as a freelance writer at Roomsnet, one of those on-line reservation networks. Basically, my job is to research and write up descriptions of hotels around the world. The work is pretty straightforward, I get to work at home and all I need is Microsoft Word, an ADSL connection and four hours a day to spare to make criminally big bucks. Really, they pay us insanely well. I’m very lucky.

 

Yeah, right.

 

I’ve only been at it for a few weeks, but I feel like I’m stuck in a limbo of apathy where what is left of my creativity is being suffocated and stabbed to death in front of me, it’s body dissected and buried beneath the shiny hardwood floors of the hotels that I am forced to write about. Sometimes I feel like I will puke if I don’t write something, anything. So I sit at the computer and let my fingers walk over the keyboard.

 

To my dull horror, the end product turns out something like this:

 

Sara walked in the moonlight, watching the white-tipped waves lap against the secluded beach of Koh Chang, which was only five hours away from Bangkok by car and ferry. Her home stood nestling against the white, unspoiled beaches, six storied high with 165 deluxe suites furnished completely in modern Thai interior décor and boasting a selection of breathtaking sea or mountain views. Each suite was equipped with a personal bathroom and mini-bar with satellite TV and a safe-deposit boxes as well as direct-dial telephone. The hotel boasts 24 hour room service and parking services as well as child care facilities as well as a tour deck. Business travelers can make use of any of the four banquet and conference rooms as well as being provided with Wi-Fi internet access and office facilities. The hotel features a pool area and gymnasium, while fine dining choices appear in the form of three on-site restaurants…

 

Man. I have got to get another job.

 

Also in real life, my SAT reasoning tests are being held on the 6^th of October, which gives me less than a month to prepare myself. The language and critical thinking part of the paper is a breeze, but the math, oh the cruel, dastardly math, is ever my Waterloo. If I die an untimely death, let it be known that it was due to the side effects of self-inflicted trigonometry upon my person. Still, I’ve already tanked the SAT due to Math once; if I do it again, I may as well go out and bury myself in the back yard over an unmarked grave before my parents do it for me.

 

It’s infuriating really. I’m not that bad at Math. I know this. I also know that I hate Math with all the venom of my inner thirteen-year-old toward the Unholy Trinity of Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry in all their Satanic incomprehensibility. I also know that I am fundamentally a bone-lazy wise-ass who has never lifted a finger to exert herself in any subject she decided not to like, screw the consequences. I have been best friends with Ennui, Self-Indulgence and Procrastination ever since preschool.

 

I'm serious. It’s not just a case of having been in the bathroom when they were handing out the standard quotient of human will power. It’s that I walked up to the counter, poked the dodgy-looking substance gingerly with a stick , read the pamphlet advertising a life of tedious productivity and contribution to society, and said “No thanks, chump,” and walked out the door. And then traded all remaining Good Sense and a goodly amount of Self Preservation Instincts for a lifetime supply of “Fuck-off-life-and-see-if-I-give-shit-ittude”.

 

Coming on the tails of my SATs, I have my IELTS exam to look forward to (yes, let’s start handing out the drinks) and also finding out whether of not I really did flunk statistics last semester. I have accepted it as a given by now that I have, but I was wondering if Fate may yet let up on me a bit in a spot of eleventh-hour compassion. I also need to request my transcripts and start transferring to York University, Toronto, if they’ll have me. Which I doubt.

 

Also, apply for driving license. Yes, I know, I am twenty and it is a disgrace that I still can’t drive. Actually, that came out wrong. The whole world feels disgraced on my behalf that I can’t yet drive. Me? I don’t have a problem with it. I have a great fondness for public transport, no sense of direction whatsoever and a great disinterest in all things on wheels. I’m not scared of getting lost, but the prospect of getting lost with a great honking pile of fuel-guzzling metal on wheels, which I must account for to the insurance company, with the added risk of clipping off the side mirrors of my fellow drivers every time my reflexes fail, holds no allure for me, strangely enough. My friends think I’m a freak of nature.

 

And that’s only the half of it. The other half I shall not go into, lest I lose the will to live and try and drown myself in my evening mug of Milo. That would make a mess of the keyboard for sure.

 

I dream lazily of a world wherein I am a pro-active, energetic individual who is compulsive about grasping the nettle and facing down her demons. The “I’ll-learn-them” type of person that makes for such good television.

 

I bet that woman is way ahead of me. I bet she made prefect in her last year of secondary school and got a top marks and a Z-score for government-funded college. I bet she went to the University of Colombo and won a scholarship to the US. I bet she’s an internet celebrity and already published her small book of short-stories that people oohed and aahed over during the first six months of it’s print run because she was so young and wasn’t it adorable, before being promptly forgotten about and going out of print. I bet she’s a champion ballroom dancer, who’s also done ballet, hip-hop and Eastern dancing just so she wouldn’t be out done by her upstart sister. I bet she knows four more languages than I do and can make speeches in both Sinhala and Tamil, without being restricted to English. I bet she is a swimmer and a diver and has climbed the Rocky Mountains on her own, despite being scared to death of heights. I bet she’s a real athlete and a black belt in martial arts and captained the school hockey team just because she wanted to make her father proud, never mind that she hates chasing silly balls with even sillier bats. I bet her father thinks she walks on water and her parents know that she’ll always be there for her brother and sister. I bet she’s responsible enough to take active part in her brother’s therapy, and always makes time for him, no matter how tired she is. I bet there’s not a person on campus who doesn’t know her name and not a party that’s complete without her presence . I bet her Mum can’t shut up about her and neither can her Mum’s friends and her Mum’s friends’ daughters are wishing her at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, there to rot forever more. I bet…

 

I bet she’s absolutely miserable.

 

Poor girl.

Comments

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Aww, I sympathize. I know too well these feelings - about writing, about being a good student, about not procrastinating and doing *something*...

Is it bad that I found that piece of writing about "Sara" extremely funny, though? XD

Hugs x million,
Anna. :)

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the sympathy, Anna. Yes, even my sister was hooting about the Sara thing, so I can't blame you. "I suppose there's a funny side to seeing toad under a harrow. The question is, does the toad see it?" =D

Good luck again for *your* stats exam!